


That Girl Is A Problem.

by Nyxierose



Series: our possibility days [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three girls. Three things worth running from. One dorm room. One freshman year of college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Octavia

**Author's Note:**

> Title is (rather obviously) from "Problem" by Natalia Kills.

College is supposed to be Octavia's first shot at a "normal" life. Normal gets to stay in quotation marks because like it or not, she is still in possession of an overprotective older brother who she has no doubt will find ways to get in _her_ way, but his paranoia has nothing on their mother's and they both know it, so at least there's that.

(Their mother is dead as of three months ago. It _looked_ enough like a suicide that nobody really considered an alternative explanation. Bellamy is vaguely convinced that she was murdered; Octavia points out that, in general, people who rarely leave their houses and have no friends and oh yeah _inexplicably isolate their teenage daughters_ do not get murdered. She tends to win this discussion.)

At eighteen, she has never been around people her own age in anything resembling a social setting. (See aforementioned maternal paranoia - and maybe that's not even an accurate description, but it at least _works_.) She's passably intelligent, which is to say she was "homeschooled" and given free reign to explore her interests… so long as that did not include leaving the house unsupervised, period. Her SAT scores were acceptable, and her admissions essay explained _very clearly_ the situation she was in and needed out of. She's pretty sure that's why the university is even giving her a chance - because on paper, she's a victim.

In reality, Octavia Blake is not a goddamn victim.

She is questionable impulse control and burning curiosity, a dangerous mix at the best of times. Add in the fact that she really doesn't know how to interact with people, and… yeah. Not a good situation waiting to happen.

Her roommates decide she's weird but harmless, which works out okay on her side. She wants to be friends with them, but the icy blonde doesn't seem to like _anyone_ and the other one is barely ever in the room at all. Blondie is pre-med, Octavia's pretty sure, and the other one is some sort of engineering probably? She doesn't really know beyond that both of them will definitely stay well out of her way. _She_ , for the record, is a communications major… for now. She's not initially sure she likes it, but she can't think of anything better _yet_.

(Ultimately, she'll stick with Communications. Turns out she's good at that sort of thing.)

The first weekend she's at school, she goes to a party. Alcohol is nice, she decides. Physical affection is nicer. She checks off all her firsts rather quickly and never looks back. She likes attention and apparently she's really good at getting it. Mostly boys, because boys are easier and more numerous, but she kisses a girl the second weekend and likes that too and leaves that door open. She likes pretty people and there are a lot of pretty people running around.

(She has no idea that she's going to fall in love soon or how much that'll change everything. Probably better thataway. She deserves these reckless weeks, deserves to spread her wings and fall a few times and always get back up stronger.)

Somehow, Octavia makes a few friends. There's a boy in her Intro to Computers class (a seemingly unnecessary required course) who pairs with her on projects and is the right combination of bitey and sweet. Through him, she meets the boy he's crushing on, who is unfairly pretty and quiet and maybe the smartest person she's ever met and, for some reason she's not sure she gets, is vaguely scared of her. Then there's another boy, this one in her English class, who picks fights with everyone else and is pretty much a dick - but she's used to people like that, and she needs a reliable guard dog, so she plays nice. She needs people in her life, and _these_ people need _her_. It's pretty awesome.

(By the time first semester is over, her roommates will be her best friends, but her little flock of lost boys will always matter just as much. _They_ , she will always remind herself, had a choice.)

She gets one of the other girls on her floor to help her put a pink streak in her hair, almost violent against her natural mud-brown. She doesn't bother with piercings - not her style, really - but she starts putting aside money for a tattoo. She learns to smile and keep her mouth shut a little more and let people in.

For the first time, Octavia is living her life on _her_ terms, and it is goddamn beautiful.

 


	2. Clarke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a good girl makes a few big mistakes.

Clarke almost doesn't go to college at all. It's a tempting rebellion after being the good girl all through high school, standing by patiently as her father fought a losing battle with cancer - and is she a bad daughter for intentionally not knowing details beyond that? - and her mother shut off. But that's exactly why Clarke _does_ go, because she is that good girl still and because this little bit of personal freedom could be a starting point for so much.

There's one condition - even though her mother lives fifteen minutes from the school (and teaches part-time in addition to working at the hospital, but the list of reasons Abby Griffin is six months from a stress breakdown is a subject for a different time), Clarke moves into the dorms. She wants to _experience_ things, start over a bit, especially since her childhood best friend is now on the other side of the country and she can't use him as an emotional crutch. (Not that she ever _means_ to, but somewhere along the line that's what Wells became and both of them have made their peace with their dynamic. This may or may not be why, out of all five schools he was accepted into, he picked the furthest-away one. They will never have that conversation.)

Roommates, however, are not something Clarke is sufficiently prepared for.

One of them is basically a fairy princess with questionable people skills. This one is around a lot, except on weekends when she's probably off doing sexual things with randoms. (Or, at least, that's the rumor Clarke hears their third week of freshman year.) This one is fairly quiet, and the only problem _she_ might cause is via an older brother who shows up on a Saturday night looking for her (Clarke is a bad liar but she's pretty sure she pulls it off fine). As long as said older brother stays the hell away - he is equal parts too annoying and too hot for his own good, as far as Clarke is concerned - the fairy princess won't be a problem.

The other one… is.

Raven is tall, loud, and frankly one of the most terrifying people Clarke has ever had to deal with. She's also unfairly gorgeous in a way that makes the other girl's insides flutter, which is a problem neither of them will address for a solid year, and dating someone who for some reason is not allowed in the dorm. Ever.

This, strangely, is how Clarke ends up sleeping with said person.

Of course, she doesn't know that the pretty boy with even prettier eyes is the same person her roommate rants about during the ten minutes every day she's actually in their room. If she did, she would've stayed the hell away, because while Clarke Griffin is a lot of things, she is _not_ a homewrecker. Not consciously, anyways. She's a good person. She's fricking pre-med and might've accidentally volunteered to help organize a food drive and she is ten days into freshman year and she does _not_ need this to go wrong.

So, she doesn't know better. That'll be her defense in three months, when Raven finds out and gets even _more_ terrifying.

And really, she's just trying to figure herself out. She's eighteen, dammit. Whatever social life she might've had in high school got killswitched by family trouble, and her one real friend is having the time of his life in San Francisco of all fricking places without her. She is _allowed_ to make a few mistakes!!

She doesn't know better. And somehow, that's the only thing Clarke has going for her. 


	3. Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a confident girl is unknowingly set up for a downfall.

Raven has everything completely under control. Full scholarship, big plans, a new start, and… oh, who is she even kidding, she's overwhelmed. Raven Reyes is overwhelmed for the first time in her goddamned life and it is the absolute weirdest thing she's ever experienced.

The thing about growing up in foster care is that it makes a person _very_ resilient. Raven, who was _technically_ in and out but far more consistently in than out, is pretty well bulletproof. She was third in her high school class - not that anyone knew that, not that anyone would ever expect that from the girl who pretty much built a moped from scratch and proceeded to have no understanding of local traffic laws, but it still happened and it still made her look damn good on her application. She can, if the situation calls for it, talk her way out of almost anything. She knows how to pick a lock, sew a patch onto a pair of old jeans, and drink enough to be fun yet not enough to do regrettable things. She's fucking Supergirl, and the problem is that she _knows_ it.

She tried to get a single room, but either that request got denied or just plain overlooked because instead she ends up with two roommates. One of them is just weird - also cute, impulsive, and kind, but _weird_ is the word that sticks for Octavia. Raven knows better than to ask about the other girl's past, but if she grew up in some kind of cult, nobody would be surprised. Hell, that would probably explain everything. But again, Raven knows better so Raven keeps her trap shut and lets the little pixie do her thing because she's not hurting anyone.

Blondezilla, on the other hand, will probably kill someone before they graduate. Maybe even multiple someones.

During one of Raven's more interesting placements, she somehow ended up friends with this girl who was completely obsessed with _Wicked_. Raven is not a musical-theater person in the slightest, but she still has every song from that goddamn thing memorized - as she will until she dies, she's pretty sure - and the very moment she sees the blonde chick, "What Is This Feeling" suddenly gets stuck in her head for a solid three hours.

It is, unfortunately, very accurate.

Blondezilla, as Raven takes to calling the girl otherwise known as Clarke Griffin, is type-A and has some sort of unresolved parental issues and possibly mild OCD (but fuck if Raven knows anything about how that works so she's not gonna label). She is a goddamn morning person. She's pre-med. She uses nasty sweet-smelling body spray that infects the entire room. She is everything Raven dislikes wrapped up in one unfairly cute package, and it's not fucking _fair_.

There are several very tempting methods of retaliation. Most of them involve actual destruction and at least two would probably get her arrested. Because Raven is trying to be a good person, however, she chooses the most benign one - spending as much time with her boyfriend as possible. This is not one of her better life choices.

Finn is… convenient. They've been best friends since they were six - system kids sticking together, it _happens_ \- and dating since they were fifteen. They have been each other's first and (at least as far as Raven knows) _only_ everything. Yeah, he's a little irritating, but he's been the most consistent thing in her life for the vast majority of said life and honestly, the familiarity is pretty damn awesome. He's like an extension of herself. But now, all of a sudden, he apparently has an actual social life. She gets it, she does. They're in college and he's majoring in psychology which means most of his classes are on the other side of the damn campus and he _needs_ friends that aren't her. She's just… not used to getting ditched.

What does Raven get out of first semester?

Mostly, an asshole who keeps invading her space in the library, which becomes her primary base of operations because Blondezilla spends _way_ too much time in the dorm room and Raven would actually like to get shit done. Except that the armchair she decides is her second home has apparently been claimed in the past by a tall-dark-and-brooding grad student who thinks he can out-talk her. (He can't, but he's kinda hot when he tries.) She knows nothing about him and she means to keep it that way, but he's still the closest thing to an actual friend she makes in those first few weeks.

(When she finds out he's the pixie's older half-brother - a reveal that takes a surprisingly long amount of time to happen - she isn't as surprised as she probably ought to be. They have the same easy charisma despite being inherently annoying, and it works for them.)

There's another grad student problem too. This one tries to hit on her. This one is in her department and is probably like this towards everyone who has tits, but he makes her smile and she likes that quite a lot. He's one of the most irritating people she's ever had to play nice with, but if by some chance she ever _really_ needs to get laid, he's probably the best option she'll ever have and she'll take it. They're an inevitability of the crash-and-burn-magnificently variety. She's cool with that ending.

But she still has a boyfriend, albeit one who's mostly ignoring her and won't give her a decent explanation as to why. She is, even though said boyfriend is an idiot, still getting fucked on the regular (getting _off_ is another matter, but she has a good vibrator and both of her roommates sleep like the dead so she deals). She's doing well in her classes, she hasn't tried to hurt anyone _yet_ , and her life is pretty awesome for now.

At the beginning of first semester of freshman year, Raven Reyes has everything. By the end, she'll have nothing, but that girl's a goddamn phoenix. She's risen from her ashes before. One more time won't kill her…


End file.
